Unless Congress revises the law, i.e., The Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998*, or the Supreme Court overturns it, movie producers like MGM, Disney, etc., have the unalienable right to apply a technology that prevents duplication of their DVDs.

Only the owner of the copyright has such authority. As such, Apple cannot unilaterally remove or provide a means to remove said protection.

Citing cases without reference is inmaterial. Currently, their are no applications to the Supreme Court to overturn the law and Congress is not moving en masse to revise or rescind it.

The court case that Melgross is referring to is, I believe, the one between Kaleidescape and the DVD Copy Control Association. I'm very, very happy to hear that Kaleidescape prevailed*! (although, I'm sure, there'll be an appeal )

The case had nothing whatsoever to do with the DMCA. Kaleidescape do not remove DRM at any stage. The DVD Copy Control Association were alleging that Kaleidescape's system violated the terms of the licence for DVD's CSS (content scrambling system).

* because I respect Kaleidescape's engineering, and it opens the door for Apple to implement a much cheaper alternative via AppleTV.

Yes, that's the case, as I now have posted. What you said about it is correct, and repeats the point I made, that the license was implemented poorly. It can be significant, if it holds up.

And, I still say that Apple and EMI's move will help strengthen the "revise the Act" group within Congress.

Yes, that's the case, as I now have posted. What you said about it is correct, and repeats the point I made, that the license was implemented poorly. It can be significant, if it holds up.

And, I still say that Apple and EMI's move will help strengthen the "revise the Act" group within Congress.

What has a private contract between two companies got to do with Congress? Again, this has no bearing whatsoever on the DMCA. The onus is on you to provide a concrete explanation as to why you think that I'm wrong, rather than just being wishy-washy and providing no links.

Q: Eric, I just want to remember things your predecessor asked for tier pricing on iTunes two years ago. Steve, an 80GB iPod will hold 20,000 tunes at 128K, how many will it hold at 256K? I assume ....
A: Heh, it's proportional. [Laughter] But as you know, storage has been going up, prices have been coming down. It's a good time to do this.[ Digg this story ][/c]

You are mixing apples with oranges. Best you understand and accept that your reference has nothing to do with the DMCA of 1998. Also, I suggest that you read more about Kaleidescape, even the FAQ's should help. According to their licencing policies they are not in conflict with the law and as such were never served under it.

As I said, Congress is not, 'en masse,' looking at revising the law. There may be a couple of Congressmen commenting on it, but there is no great movement to change it.

Finally, I take exception to your rather inexcusable acusitory demeanor. I merely stated that in order for things to change, Congress will have to revise the law or the Supreme court has to strike it down. Apple can't unilaterally do it. To do so would be an illegal act.

Just a guess, maybe Apple decided they would like ALL their music offering to eventually move to a higher bitrate (256 instead of 128). While at it (the encoding) they got the music companies to agree to drop the DRM. They figure more people would be interested in this higher quality music and the majority would choose it over the lower quality. Thus, why spend the time to re-encode all the 128 bitrate songs so they don't have DRM. Just a thought.

I had the same thought earlier and I think you are right. I just had another related thought; Just a guess, maybe Apple decided this would be as good point as any to push the price of iTunes store songs past the holy $1 price point.

256 kbps iTunes is LONG overdue. My entire library is 256kbps and I haven't bought much from the store because I didn't think paying for a lowly 128 kbps was worth it. I think what Jobs says about EMI being a "leader" is absolutely true...once the other companies see how popular the new DRM-Free music is they'll be forced to compete by freeing up their music.

Q: Two things. One, do you think this will really signal a more flexible attitude to pricing generally on iTunes? And secondly, is there a danger that consumers apart from feeling grateful will feel slightly cheated that they've been given these two things and asked to pay 20 pence more to upgrade some of their material they should already have?

A: Steve: Well I 'll answer the second part first. I think think when you give people choices, most people feel good about that. So this is a choice and they can make it either way they want. We believe the music lovers are in control of this in the end. And so we're giving them a choice and they can choose whichever way they want to go. And sure, this is a little bit more flexibility. There's two choices instead of one. Life is a balance between total freedom and simplicity. And we try to strike the local maximums, where we can give people what they tell us and what we think they want. And I think we've demonstrated that we've done a pretty good job of that. Customers have really loved iTunes and the last thing we want to do is screw that up for them.

There's a certain three-step equation that is considered by many the key to success at business:

Step 1: Start a business

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Profit!

Buried in the answer above lies the key to solving step 2:

Step 1: Start a business

Step 2: ".. we try to strike the local maximums, where we can give people what they tell us and what we think they want."

Step 3: Profit!

There are local maxima of things that people will pay for. Books, music, shows, cuisine, food, water. Google lists about 115 million pages for eBay.com. Commonalities are seen:

Appliances should be clean and functional.

Books should be legible and shipped without delay.

Cars sold by individuals are higher risk but lower hassle.

Digital music must be interoperable and free of defects.

Explain how a product is worth their money and many people will choose to buy it. Meeting the needs of customers may very well profit for both Apple and EMI. Woot.

Actually Microsoft is killing Playforsure with their own Zune product. It won't play music purchased from Playforsure stores. They realized Apple had the right idea.
What I'm happy about is that Apple just gave the AAC standard a real boost with this move. Now ALL the other player will have to support AAC wholesouled if they want to play the game. Thank goodness Windows Audio didn't become the "standard".

Microsoft has been using the same Janus DRM scheme for years, just under different names. The reason the Zune uses incompatible DRM is that Microsoft made their Scheme ultra flexible so they can change it at a whim. But PlayForSure and the Zune were never alive to begin with, just existing.

I don't think this will help Zune much. Apple still has a huge installed base of happy iPod users. And even if they can buy new titles without DRM, any users that have used iTS for any length of time have a string incentive to stick with Apple.

I disagree with Steve Jobs that the non-DRM route will become predominant, and I don't think he believes it either. With a two tier-system, Apple gets to have it both ways -- non-DRM is available for the people who cry about it all the time, but most iPod users (i.e., the majority of MP3 player users) will stick with Apple.

This deal is aimed at regulators who want to shut DRM out of Eurpoean markets and not at the tiny percentage of iPod users that care about DRM.

That tiny percentage of iPod Users are still customers, and as Apple's install base grows, so does that tiny percentage. Further, the iTunes Store only breaks even for Apple with minimal profit. Almost everything they make goes back into the store, but if Apple can roughly double the amount of customers every 6-12 months using this new model then they would actually make a tidy profit from it.

IN YOUR FACE NORWAY! They just killed your argument dead. Of course Norway got kind of silent so methinks Apple put the DRM free content smackdown on them a couple of weeks ago.

Easy big guy!

First, it demonstrates that Norway was right to challenge the status quo, just like Jobs is doing.

Second, it proves that Jobs has been wanting to do this for years, but the record labels were dragging their feet and all of the DRM-haters blaming Steve for the dismal existance of phonic life on Earth were over=blown and just needed the market to mature.

Third, if it takes the EU or Norway to get EMI and others and Microsoft to play fair than "Yea, Norway!!"

The EMI guy is obviously looking for this to be global and Universal and Warner are going to have to play in that market ... and Apple will be there.

The Mother of all flip-flops!!Support our troops by educating yourself and being a responsible voter. Democracy and Capitalism REQUIRE Intelligence and Wisdom if they are to be worth a damn beyond...

* because I respect Kaleidescape's engineering, and it opens the door for Apple to implement a much cheaper alternative via AppleTV.

Depends on the terms of Apple CSS license right? I presume it has one for Apple's DVD player but I'd think the terms would have been more straightforward than what Kaleidescape negotiated with DVD CCA.

Unless the CCA were complete goons...which is plausible given Kaleidescape tried working with them in the first place to iron out the difficulties before the CCA stabbed them in the back.

What has a private contract between two companies got to do with Congress? Again, this has no bearing whatsoever on the DMCA. The onus is on you to provide a concrete explanation as to why you think that I'm wrong, rather than just being wishy-washy and providing no links.

This has nothing to do with links. It's a matter of opinion.

The DMCA was written to provide protection for those very private companies that you now consider to be unimportant to the DMCA. Are you denying that? If so, what is the purpose of the DMCA?

With a court saying that the protection the DMCA provides for that license, which is to prevent copying by breaking the DRM, for ANY reason, is invalid because it was written poorly, IS important. This puts that issue in limbo, unless those companies can persuade the court that putting it aside should be put off until the case is resolved at whatever level it gets to.

Unless that happens, copying for certain purposes is legal, and it will then be legal until the license is rewritten, and approved.

That issue itself isn't important in resolving the DMCA issues now before Congress, and if I gave you the thought that I meant that it was, then I apologize. I didn't mean to.

However, I do mean that my now twice stated opinion that the Apple/EMI contract will be of importance, stands.

The fact that two big entities in the content producing and distribution business have agreed to drop DRM altogether, weakens the stance taken by the other companies that pressed for the protections gained by the DMCA in regard to the prevention of copying by the addition of DRM, the breaking of which the DMCA specifically disallows, for ANY reason, including for the still legal purpose of backups.

By dropping DRM, these companies are telling the world, and Congress, that DRM is not needed, As some in Congress have stated that they too think that the DMCA is too draconian, this will help their position.

What would happen if in a few months, both Apple and EMI testified that dropping DRM increased their businesses, and that they felt that DRM was hurting the consumer? The influence of those seeking to not only keep all of the DMCA, but to also strengthen it even more, will be in a bad situation. It will be a major break in a previously solid industry position. With the indies, EMusic, and others, also stating that their businesses were doing fine without it, we may find the DMCA being seriously revised towards the direction of the consumer.

You are mixing apples with oranges. Best you understand and accept that your reference has nothing to do with the DMCA of 1998. Also, I suggest that you read more about Kaleidescape, even the FAQ's should help. According to their licencing policies they are not in conflict with the law and as such were never served under it.

As I said, Congress is not, 'en masse,' looking at revising the law. There may be a couple of Congressmen commenting on it, but there is no great movement to change it.

Finally, I take exception to your rather inexcusable acusitory demeanor. I merely stated that in order for things to change, Congress will have to revise the law or the Supreme court has to strike it down. Apple can't unilaterally do it. To do so would be an illegal act.

I am not saying that the Kaleidescape issue will affect the DMCA. The area of importance in that case was the court throwing out part of the DVD license. That could have import, as I said.

I'm also not saying that all of Congress is interested in revising the DMCA, but a few in Congress are no happy with it, and have stated that they will call hearings. I did say "some". We will see what will happen.

My above post is my stand on that.

I re-read my posts, and I can't find any words where I "accused" you of anything. Saying that you are wrong is perfectly ok.

The court did not throw out any part of the DVD CSS license. It just narrowed it. The DVD CCA claimed that the CSS Spec was a part of the license. Kaleidescape claimed otherwise. The judge agreed with Kaleidescape. It is the CSS Spec that required a physical DVD for playback. Kaleidescape was playing back from a server without a physical DVD. Thus the breach of contract suit by the DVD CCA. No DMCA issue at all.

From arstechnica.com and other sites I gather that the DVD CCA keeps the CSS Spec secret until after someone agrees to the license. Because of this secrecy and the after the fact exposure the judge agreed with Kaleidescape that the CSS Spec was not a part of the license.

The court did not throw out any part of the DVD CSS license. It just narrowed it. The DVD CCA claimed that the CSS Spec was a part of the license. Kaleidescape claimed otherwise. The judge agreed with Kaleidescape. It is the CSS Spec that required a physical DVD for playback. Kaleidescape was playing back from a server without a physical DVD. Thus the breach of contract suit by the DVD CCA. No DMCA issue at all.

From arstechnica.com and other sites I gather that the DVD CCA keeps the CSS Spec secret until after someone agrees to the license. Because of this secrecy and the after the fact exposure the judge agreed with Kaleidescape that the CSS Spec was not a part of the license.

That's semantics.

If I write what I think is a proper license, and other parties agree to it, then it is considered to be a valid license.

But, if I get into a court case about part of that license, and the court says that it was poorly written, and throws part of it out, stating that it was never actually part of the license, then that is exactly what the court did. It threw part of the license out. It wasn't secrecy. You can't have a secret part of a license. No company could ever enforce that. It was simply that the relevent part was improperly written, and was thrown out. Which is what I stated.

The DMCA was written to provide protection for those very private companies that you now consider to be unimportant to the DMCA. Are you denying that? If so, what is the purpose of the DMCA?

No, it appears he's saying that a contract dispute between two companies doesn't involve the DMCA.

Quote:

With a court saying that the protection the DMCA provides for that license, which is to prevent copying by breaking the DRM, for ANY reason, is invalid because it was written poorly, IS important. This puts that issue in limbo, unless those companies can persuade the court that putting it aside should be put off until the case is resolved at whatever level it gets to.

Except that the DRM was never broken. Only a contract was broken. The decision, by all accounts, is a narrow one in favor of Kaledisacpe.

Quote:

Unless that happens, copying for certain purposes is legal, and it will then be legal until the license is rewritten, and approved.

Only for the owners of one jukebox and only because that manufacturer has an intact CSS license. The DRM itself was never broken.

Quote:

That issue itself isn't important in resolving the DMCA issues now before Congress, and if I gave you the thought that I meant that it was, then I apologize. I didn't mean to.

However, I do mean that my now twice stated opinion that the Apple/EMI contract will be of importance, stands.

Whether Apple/EMI can help FAIR USE (HR 1201) get passed is debatable since the agreement is so new. The other studios can argue that its an experiment and one that could end in failure. I doubt Apple/EMI would have any compelling statistics in such a short time anyway given the May start date.

But your saying that this case and the Apple/EMI deal weakens the DMCA. That's not the case. Neither issue involves the DMCA at all. The DMCA makes it illegal to bypass copy protection. The DVD CCA/Kaleidescape issue is about how the playback is controlled. And the Apple/EMI deal has no copy protection. Neither issue touches the DMCA, nor does either one weaken it. Our real hope is political, that congress upholds the consumers right to time-shift, space-shift or what-ever-shift media that we have purchased for our own personal use.

But your saying that this case and the Apple/EMI deal weakens the DMCA. That's not the case. Neither issue involves the DMCA at all. The DMCA makes it illegal to bypass copy protection. The DVD CCA/Kaleidescape issue is about how the playback is controlled. And the Apple/EMI deal has no copy protection. Neither issue touches the DMCA, nor does either one weaken it. Our real hope is political, that congress upholds the consumers right to time-shift, space-shift or what-ever-shift media that we have purchased for our own personal use.

I think you missed my point about the Apple/EMI agreement.

The point was that they DON"T have DRM. Not that they do. And yes, the solution there is political. And this can help that. It is, after all, the media companies that insisted on the DMCa in the first place.

This TOTALLY SUCKS. Very STUPID. Heck, I think $0.99 per track is high. So, Apple, lower the price of the DRM-infected songs - because with DRM they really are not worth anything anyway. And then make the new DRM-free content $0.99 per track. Now that I could handle.

Quote:

Q: I take it then that you are going to advocate taking the DRM off of the videos you sell on iTunes. Any particular [inaudible] you could do that with the Disney company?
A: You know, video, uh... I knew I'd get that question today. Video is pretty different than music right now because the video industry does not distribute 90 percent of their content DRM free; never has, and so I think they are in a pretty different situation and so I wouldn't hold the two in parallel at all.

Dear Steve... I would really like the movies/video content I buy from iTunes to be just as interoperable as the new DRM-free music I will be able to buy from iTunes. I don't give a flying rats @$$ what percentage of movies are already distributed with or without DRM. Make it happen, Steve! I refuse to buy ANYTHING with DRM. Period. When the iTunes movies and Videos go DRM-free, and, oh yea.. better quality, THEN, and only THEN will I buy any video/movie content from iTunes!

Perhaps one could say that freedom always costs more than bondage but that would be rather trite in the context of DRM on entertainment mediums...

For folks clamoring for DRM free music its time to put up.

Vinea

I disagree! I live in the UK and pay 40% income tax, 17.5% VAT on almost everything I buy and 3%-4% stamp duty (3%-4% of the value of the house goes to the government) when I buy a house. This is bondage and this is expensive!

This TOTALLY SUCKS. Very STUPID. Heck, I think $0.99 per track is high. So, Apple, lower the price of the DRM-infected songs - because with DRM they really are not worth anything anyway. And then make the new DRM-free content $0.99 per track. Now that I could handle.

Dear Steve... I would really like the movies/video content I buy from iTunes to be just as interoperable as the new DRM-free music I will be able to buy from iTunes. I don't give a flying rats @$$ what percentage of movies are already distributed with or without DRM. Make it happen, Steve! I refuse to buy ANYTHING with DRM. Period. When the iTunes movies and Videos go DRM-free, and, oh yea.. better quality, THEN, and only THEN will I buy any video/movie content from iTunes!

Well, you are certainly one-sided about this!

Aren't you willing to understand that Apple, just like any other company has to balance the needs of various constituencies? The providers want to charge more, not less.

When you get more of something, you normally pay more. You may not like it, but then just admit that YOU aren't happy. That would be fine. But demanding that it change to suit you, when when most people seem to be satisfied, is useless.

Whether we feel that going without DRM will help the companies or harm them, doesn't matter. It's what THEY think will happen that matters, unless the higher quality DRMless songs don't sell. And that's your opportunity to tell them something. Don't buy them.

To say that the over 2 billion songs that people have bought from iTunes because they thought they were worth it, aren't worth it, is interesting, to say the least.

Videos are a different matter. It's too early to know what will happen in the long run.

But, again, remember, it's not Apple's ability to decide what will happen here either. They have to negotiate their deals. They get something, and they give something.

I disagree! I live in the UK and pay 40% income tax, 17.5% VAT on almost everything I buy and 3%-4% stamp duty (3%-4% of the value of the house goes to the government) when I buy a house. This is bondage and this is expensive!

It's sad, but you do get that wonderful National Health Plan. You Britions like waiting on lines, right?

I disagree! I live in the UK and pay 40% income tax, 17.5% VAT on almost everything I buy and 3%-4% stamp duty (3%-4% of the value of the house goes to the government) when I buy a house. This is bondage and this is expensive!

If you're paying that much tax, your income is cushy enough. If you wanna swap places, be my guest!

(I'm house-hunting at the moment. In my price range there is no stamp duty. Alas, I can't afford anything more expensive.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by melgross

It's sad, but you do get that wonderful National Health Plan. You Britions like waiting on lines, right?

Heh.

The NHS isn't so bad. I worked it out once, that had I lived in America I'd have spent a few thousand on drugs that I got for negligible cost here. Yeah, the service sucks, but at least it's free.

If you're paying that much tax, your income is cushy enough. If you wanna swap places, be my guest!

Well said.

Although, having said that, the fact that stamp duty applies to the whole price, rather than just the amount above the threshold is a bitch. e.g. The stamp duty for houses priced £125,000 to £250,000 is 1%, between £250,000 and £500,000 it's 3%, and over £500,000 it's 4%. This means that if I buy a house for £250,000 the stamp duty is £2500, but I buy one for £250,001 and suddenly the stamp duty is £7500.03!! This has the effect of creating price voids between approx. £250,000 to £270,000 and £500,000 to £550,000. (anything within those bands is likely to be negotiated down below the relevant stamp-duty threshold).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amorya

Yeah, the service sucks, but at least it's free.

It doesn't completely suck. The (thankfully little) service I've received has been good. Yes, I had to wait, but once it was my turn I was dealt with very well.